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So what’s the deal?

Am I going to do the typical blogger thing and start posting once every six months after my first ten posts? Probably. Deal with it, I am a parent of twins now. I barely have time to brush my teeth. But in the interests of keeping things going a little longer, I’m going to repurpose my latest Guyology article from HiS Magazine. Stay tuned early next week for the girls’ first music video and news on a possible guest appearance on The Rotted Brain podcast.

On to the recycling…

You Say You Want a Resolution…

It’s a brand new year, which means only one thing – time to come up with some brand new resolutions to break. This time around, I decided to take a more pragmatic approach and focus on some new areas of personal development. Something that might be helpful to a wide range of men. Here’s what I came up with, feel free to borrow them as applicable:

I resolve to stop putting the toilet seat down

Not long after I got married, I made a big mistake. My wife kept complaining about me leaving the lid up when I went to the bathroom. At first I was confused. Would she rather I left it down when I went? No. Apparently it was a problem because if she got up to go in the middle of the night, she might accidentally fall into the bowl. No problem, I thought, it’s not a huge adjustment to my routine. I’d be happy to help. It’s been five and a half years and I’m starting to question the whole thing. The whole premise is flimsy. You’re worried about falling in the toilet? Here’s a crazy thought – try checking the seat. When I get up in the middle of the night to go, I don’t just stumble into a dark bathroom, let it fly, and hope the lid is up. Complaining that the toilet seat is always up is like saying, “Honey, I really wish you’d stop putting my sandwiches in Ziploc bags. I keep biting into the plastic.”

I resolve to never ask for directions again

This one’s getting easier and easier to stick to. With GPS units, MapQuest, and all the other keep-you-from-getting-lost technologies out there, we men have caught a bit of a break. Sometimes I even chart a course in Google Earth so I can identify the building of my destination and maybe even find the best parking spot. At the same time, all of our old “resources” for directions are getting less reliable anyway. Have you tried asking for directions at a gas station lately? You’ll be lucky to find a guy who knows what cross streets he is on.

I resolve to spend more time on football

I just used my brokerage’s online financial calculator to estimate the cost of a college education for my twin girls in eighteen years. Allowing for modest inflation, it figured that a four-year private college education should be going for over $350,000. Per kid. So every little bit of extra income will come in handy. I think the biggest reason that I don’t win my fantasy football leagues every year is because I slack off in the offseason. If I want to get serious about my kids’ future, I’m going to have to really apply myself all 365 days of the year. I should probably play in more poker games too. At least, this is the story I fed my wife as I tried to manage my team during week 14 from our hospital room after delivery. Luckily, she was pretty goofed on morphine at the time so she was pretty agreeable. It shouldn’t matter anyway. I’ve already started the girls on an intensive volleyball training regimen so they can get those full ride scholarships. Some people think you should wait until they’re at least a month old, to which I
say – pshaw. I’ll see your loser kids on the junior varsity squad.

I resolve to spend time playing with my kids

Is there anything more precious than time spent playing with your children? I have many fond memories from my childhood of time spent whooping up on my dad in games of Armor Battle or Baseball on the Mattel Intellivision (that’s what came after the Atari 2600 but before the Nintendo Entertainment System for you kiddies under 30). I want my kids to share in that kind of bonding. Unfortunately, at present they lack the fine motor control required to successfully play any video games–but I vow to stay on top of the latest advances in video games until such time that they are ready to partake. In short, I need to keep the Xbox 360 in the living room and play it fastidiously. For the kids.

I resolve to stop making resolutions

New Year’s resolutions are dumb anyway. If something in your life needs fixing, why wait until some arbitrary date to do it? Either do it right away or deal with the fact that you can’t change. But don’t make a plan to do it later. Besides, nobody sticks to resolutions anyway. If they did, what would they have to do when the next new year came around? Which is probably a good thing. Because when I break this last one, it will give me a chance to think of some new ones to break next year.